Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the National Audit Office Report, COMPASS contracts for the provision of accommodation for asylum seekers, published in January 2014, what steps she has taken in response to recommendations f, g and h in that report.

With reference to the National Audit Office Report, COMPASS contracts for the
provision of accommodation for asylum seekers, the Home Department has
undertaken the following steps in response to recommendations F, G and H in the
report:

F. The Department should work with providers to ensure that they review the
arrangements for property maintenance, including the process for managing
properties between occupants, and look at ways to reduce the backlog.

The Department has completed a review of the process used by COMPASS providers
to manage property standards and is working closely with all providers to
improve the standard of accommodation. Joint housing inspections are now
routinely undertaken by the providers' housing officers and the Department's
contract compliance teams. Our priority is achieving plans that ensure
providers respond more quickly to property defects and to increase
accommodation quality over the lifetime of the contract.

G. The Department should work with providers to ensure that they audit the
training of housing officer staff, with particular regard to understanding
service users' needs, and ensure that arrangements for accessing properties are
being applied consistently.

Providers are required by contract to ensure that their staff are adequately
trained in customer care and cultural awareness and that they conduct
themselves in a polite, sensitive and professional manner. Providers have
committed to improving in this area of their service delivery and the
Department will continue to monitor this closely.

H. The Department should work with providers to ensure that they develop
appropriate mechanisms to capture feedback from service users about their
experiences living in asylum accommodation – for example customer satisfaction
surveys or focus groups.

Customer satisfaction surveys and focus groups do not currently form part of
the COMPASS contract. However, the Department recognises the benefits of
having an independent measure of customer satisfaction and is committed to
implementing this for COMPASS Services. Consultation with providers has started
and a process for capturing customer satisfaction is currently being piloted.